1. Tom’s morning-after dance number from 500 Days of Summer.
2. Carl and Ellie’s love story from Up.
3. Princess Buttercup pushes Westley down a hill in The Princess Bride.
4. The long-awaited kiss at the end of Amélie.
5. When Gandalf saves the day (again) in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
Filed under confessions, Five Things Friday
I had never heard of Pancake Day until I moved to the UK, but now that I know about it, I’ll never go a year without celebrating.
Pancake Day (celebrated on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent) was traditionally the day people ate up all their rich foods like flour, sugar and butter in preparation for spending the Lent season fasting. It’s not so practical these days, but it’s still celebrated…because eating pancakes is always a good idea.
Never one to pass up on an opportunity to celebrate, Adlai and I spent Pancake Day morning on Tuesday with his friends Sam and Rae and their mama, Sarah, who also happens to be one of my good friends and a real food mentor. Sarah made some delicious soaked grain pancakes and they. were. delicious. (You can find the recipe on Sarah’s blog, here.)
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned the fact that I’m from North Carolina, but Sarah’s from Texas, and while English pancakes are a little bit different, we went for American pancakes because, well, we’re American. We topped our pancakes with fresh fruit – bananas, kiwi, apples and cinnamon – and a healthy dose of maple syrup.
Later on Tuesday, Simon and I had our small group at our house, and we made pancakes again – this time a selection of my beloved American fluffy variety, and some English flat pancakes, that are a bit more like crépes and can be topped with savoury things like bacon and cheese and mushrooms…and even salmon, apparently.
I took some pictures of our pancake breakfast, but by the time the evening had rolled around, I was feeling every minute of my eight-months-pregnant, so I mostly just sat in a chair and let people bring pancakes to me.
If you’ve never celebrated Pancake Day, I highly, highly recommend it. I mean, I eat pancakes pretty often anyway, but any excuse will do.
And, of course, a gratuitous Adlai picture, because I’m obsessed with him…
Filed under England, food, glorious food
Okay, it’s not Friday. But let’s pretend.
Plus, this post should kind of explain for itself why it’s happening on a Saturday.
For the past several months, I’ve been super, super busy with writing and photography work – something you’ll never hear me complain about. But it’s meant that just about every moment of my “free” time (naptimes, evenings, what-have-yous) has been taken up with doing work or thinking about work. I’m almost finished with a couple of big projects, and I’m looking forward to declaring myself on maternity leave in the next couple of weeks, just in time to rest and nest and get ready for this baby.
So, without further ado, may I present to you…
1. Take some self-portraits. I’ve been dying to get out my camera and tripod and take some photos of this sweet bump, and time is ticking away. So when this work is done, I’m using a naptime ASAP to document this belly for posterity. And for my own enjoyment, too.
2. Nap. I’m not even going to explain this. I’m tired.
3. Read a book (or two). I’ve got two books lined up that I’m dying to get started on, but I’ve exhibited ridiculous will power (if I do say so myself) and not cracked them open because I KNOW I won’t want to put them down. One is The Hunger Games (I know, I know, I’m way behind). The other is called Prototype, and it’s the first book by one of my favorite writers/thinkers/theologians, Jonathan Martin.
4. Go on a babymoon. It won’t be much – just a night away – but we’re dropping Adlai off at his grandparents’ house in a couple of weeks and going to a hotel for a night. We’re going to sleep, go swimming, go out for a nice meal, and then sit in a coffee shop and read for several uninterrupted hours.
5. Indulge in these nesting urges I’ve been having for weeks but haven’t had the time to act on. I want to get baby clothes out of the attic, finish up a couple of art projects for my walls, get our bedroom feeling like a tranquil getaway (just in time to be invaded by a newborn), and throw away a whole bunch of junk. I can. not. wait.
Oh, also, write some blog posts I’ve been listing for weeks. Which I realize is a sixth thing, but I haven’t put a number on it, so…
Five Things! Woo!
Filed under Five Things Friday
All day Saturday I felt this baby boy moving inside of me. And I mean all. day.
I pointed it out to Simon, who watched from across the room as my belly pulsed and rolled, and I put Adlai’s hand on my tummy at bedtime, to let him feel his little brother kick and wiggle. He says, “yeah Mama,” when I ask him if he wants to touch the baby, but he struggles to be still long enough to feel anything.
Me, I cherish the brief, quiet moments when it is just me and this new one, when he reminds me he’s coming.
Now, it’s 1pm, and Adlai is sleeping. We were at playgroup this morning, which is always fun and noisy and exhausting, and I have work to do this afternoon – laundry and sending invoices and copywriting. But I am sitting down now, because I am tired. And because I want one little moment with my littlest one.
I can feel something hard at the top of my belly, and I’m pretty sure it’s his bottom. So I push it, and I feel his hands or his head press against the other end of my abdomen.
Soon he’ll be out here with us.
“Baby comin’,” Adlai says. “To Ah-gai’s house.”
Soon he will kick and wiggle on a blanket on the floor. My belly will be empty, but my house will be full.
Full of stinky toddler diapers and stinky newborn diapers. Full of breast pads and juice boxes and rattles and bikes. Full of hysterical, tickle-induced laughter, and frantic feed-me-now cries.
Full of little pieces of my heart, moving around outside my body.
Full of my family.
Full of my boys.
1. Meeting my new little boy. Now that it’s February, I can finally say he’ll be here next month. Unless, of course, I’m overdue. (Please no.)
2. A house with a third bedroom. We’ve mmm-ed and ahh-ed for months about whether to stay put or look for another place with one more room, and I’m still hoping we’ll find somewhere with a room we can use for an office, and offer to our guests so they can feel welcome and comfortable, rather than an air mattress on our living room floor.
3. A new computer. I’ve got my eye on an iMac. It’ll look so pretty in my new, three-bedroom house. 
4. Getting away with Simon one last time before this baby comes. He’s booked a week off later this month, and we’ve gotten my in-laws to offer to keep Adlai, so we’ll be off – probably only for one night – to stay in a hotel, go swimming, eat a nice, quiet dinner, and drink coffee and read the newspaper for two hours straight.
5. My 31st birthday. It’s later this month, and I feel pretty ready for it. Mostly because I’ve already got in mind how I want to celebrate, and I have a ridiculous love for my birthday. In fact, for my whole birthday month. Which, by the way, starts today. Let the Festival of Faith begin!
Filed under Five Things Friday
My sweet mama and me on my wedding day
There was a brief period from about 1994-1996, when I was pretty sure I was being raised by idiots. Turns out I was wrong. Here are just a few of the five kabillion things my mom was right about…
1. You’ve got to clean for the cleaner.
Last week, I made an uncomfortable confession over at Lark & Bloom: I have a cleaner.
When I was a kid, my parents had a cleaner who came a few times a month, and I could never understand why, the night before she was due to come, my mom would make us clean the house.
“But Mooooom,” we’d whine. “What’s the point of having a cleaner if you’re going to make us clean anyway?”
Now I get it.
I do my dishes and pick up all the toys off my floor because those things are easy, and if I’m going to pay someone to come and clean my house, I want them to spend their time bleaching my grout and scrubbing my toilet with a toothbrush (thanks, Sharon ), not do stuff I can do myself…or bribe my two-year-old to do.
2. Nothing good happens after midnight.
98% of the stupid things I’ve done have been in the wee hours of the morning. I’ll leave it at that.
3. When you know, you know.
About a week before I met Simon, I called my mom from England to talk about a boy back home who’d told me he loved me.
“I love him,” I said. “I’m just not sure I’m in love with him.”
“Baby,” she answered, “if you’re having to work this hard, it’s not right. When you know, you know.”
And we all know what happened next.
___
During those painful early teenaged years when I thought my mom was crazy, she told me I’d understand one day. She was right. So go on, add that to the list too.
Filed under confessions, women
Some days, everything just hurts.
I am tired and sensitive and easily offended. I am sure I am a selfish wife and a lazy mother and a rubbish friend. And I feel too weak to carry all the weight this world asks us to bear.
On those days of hurt feelings and two-year-old temper tantrums, of ruined plans and crap weather, everything that’s broken in me cries out, “Who am I?”
And often, honestly, I hear my words hit the wall.
But on the days when I am quiet enough to catch it, if the TV is off and my phone is on silent and I really want to know the answer, I can hear Him say, “I will tell you.”
Because only He knows. Only He has it written down – scrawled in steadfast, permanent ink.
Not wife or mother or friend. Not artist, not writer, and certainly not try-hard, wannabe, failure.
Only daughter. Only His.
And here I can let go. And close the curtains. And rest. In the knowledge that my shortfalls and my setbacks do not define me. My weakness has not changed what is written, what cannot be erased.
Who He says that I am.
Filed under confessions, spirituality, women
